BLM Gives the US Public and Federal Judge the Finger

Public outrage is increasing as the Obama
Administration proceeds with a controversial Christmas week roundup of
thousands of wild Nevada mustangs despite a federal court’s suggestion last
week that the action be postponed.

Today, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) began
the cruel wild horse capture in secret, on private lands where the public
will be barred from observing the treatment of the horses. In response, In
Defense of Animals (IDA) today released video of BLM chief Don Glenn,
stating at a public meeting in Reno on December 7 that “All of our gathers
are open to the public; the public is invited to watch all the time.” See
the VIDEO.

Just a day before Glenn made that statement, the BLM completed the
roundup of 217 horses on the California/Nevada border, an action that was
taken illegally with no public notification. Two weeks later, the BLM denied
a request by an IDA observer to witness a helicopter stampede of horses
living in the Palomino Buttes area in Eastern Oregon , stating “no observers
would be allowed or welcome at this roundup.”

“Directly counter to the spirit of the Obama Administration’s promise of
transparency, the President is allowing the BLM to secretly begin the
roundup of thousands of wild horses living peacefully on more than one-half
million acres of public lands in Nevada,” said Elliot M. Katz, DVM, IDA
president. “This roundup will commence out of view of the public during a
holiday week when government officials are off on holiday and have been
unable to address complaints and a formal Motion to Stay (stop) the roundup.
This action reflects very poorly on the BLM and most of all on the Obama
Administration.”

In a December 23, 2009 decision, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman
said that the BLM’s plans to stockpile these horses in Midwestern holding
facilities is likely illegal, and consequently suggested that BLM postpone
the Calico gather. That ruling, combined with the National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA) violations cited in IDA’s complaints to the White House
Council on Environmental Quality and the Interior Department, should warrant
President Obama’s intervention to stop this roundup immediately, IDA said.

Judge Friedman’s decision was made in response to a federal lawsuit filed
by IDA, Nevada ecologist Craig Downer and noted children’s writer Terri
Farley, also a Nevada resident, to halt the roundup, which involves a
helicopter stampede and capture of 2,700 horses in the more than
500,000-acre Calico Mountains Complex in northwestern Nevada. The horses
will be traumatized, terrorized, and many will be injured and/or killed.
Foals and their mothers will be separated and horse family bands will be
shattered forever

In a 2008 report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found
that the BLM was not transparent with the public about how horses are
treated under its Wild Horse and Burro management program.

“For America ’s wild horses, President Obama’s promise of change rings
hollow,” said IDA president Elliot M. Katz, DVM. “His administration has
continued the same secretive and destructive Bush Administration war on the
wild horses of the American West.”

IDA said that wild horses are removed for the benefit of private
livestock owners and other extractive users of public lands. Despite a
Congressional mandate to protect wild horses in the Calico Complex, the BLM
has in recent times increased the number of cattle to run on the same public
lands where they are removing wild horses. The BLM ignores its federal
mandate to remove livestock from federal wild horse management areas “if
necessary to provide habitat for wild horses or burros, to implement herd
management actions, or to protect wild horses or burros from disease,
harassment or injury” (43 CFR § 4710.5).

If the Administration continues its current course, it will capture and
remove nearly 12,000 wild horses a year from their native Western homes for
the next three years, after which time the number of horses in Midwestern
holding facilities will number more than 50,000 and far exceed those left on
the range.

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